The present invention relates to a door and, more particularly, to a door for a motor vehicle including an outer skin and an inner skin.
Conventional car doors generally include an outer skin made of metal which simultaneously provides a supportive and stabilizing function, with the outer skin being provided with rigidifying or reinforcing means in an interior of the door. The inner skin, which can be made of a synthetic resin, forms merely a paneling mounted to the outer skin but contributing little if anything to the ruggedness or sturdiness of the door. Thus, a disadvantage of the conventional motor vehicle door resides in the fact that the doors are not only heavy in weight but also relatively expensive to manufacture.
Synthetic-resin doors have also been proposed; however, these proposed synthetic-resin doors are unable to meet the desired functional requirements for a vehicle door and also unable to meet the legal requirements.
Moreover, the further disadvantages in the proposed synthetic-resin doors resides in the fact that the doors do not have dimensional stability, they shrink, and do not satisfy the demands posed by large-scale series manufacturing.
The aim underlying the present invention essentially resides in providing a vehicle door of the aforementioned type which, in spite of a very low weight, is dimensionally stable and can be manufactured in a simple and economical manner.
In accordance with advantageous features of the present invention, a motor vehicle door is provided wherein an outer skin and an inner skin of the door are fashioned of synthetic resin shells, with the inner skin being formed as an integral component of a door body including a supportive skeleton of rod-shaped bars.
By virtue of the features of the present invention, the inner skin of the vehicle door represents the supportive member rather than, as with conventional doors, the outer skin, and the supportive skeleton is integrated into the inner skin. The supportive skeleton includes rigid and dimensionally stable struts coated by, for example, molding, with the synthetic resin of the inner skin and the outer skin, shaped as separately produced shells, being attached to the inner skin. The outer skin has no supportive function so that, in the case of damage to the outer skin, the structure of the door will not be adversely affected. The surfaces of the inner and outer skins are elastic so that they regain their original shape if subjected to an impact or shock that is not excessive.
Since the vehicle door of the present invention consists almost exclusively of a synthetic resin, the door offers, in addition to the advantage of a low weight, a positive feature in as much as the door is not subject to change by rust or corrosion. Moreover, the struts of the supportive skeleton, which can be fashioned of metal, are entirely embedded in the material of the inner skin and surrounded by this material so that they are also effectively protected against adverse environmental influences.
In accordance with the present invention, hinge members are mounted at one end of the supportive skeleton, and a lock is arranged at the opposite end. With this arrangement or construction, the ridged and dimensionally stable supportive skeleton takes care of retaining the correct spacial correlation between the lock and the hinge members thereby insuring that, in the case of dimensional changes taking place at the synthetic resin parts, the door will always close in the correct manner, and the function of the lock is not impaired by any such dimensional changes.
Preferably, in accordance with the present invention, the outer skin terminates at the lower boundary line of a window, and the supportive skeleton, integral with the inner skin, is fashioned so that it extends completely around the window. The supportive skeleton constitutes not only the supportive and stabilizing part of the vehicle door, but also simultaneously a frame imbedded in the inner skin, insuring the door retains its shape. The outer skin is not attached directly to the supportive skeleton, but rather to the parts of the inner skin surrounding the supportive skeleton and, consequently, it is unnecessary to attach synthetic resin to metal which would require special mounting elements such as, for example, screws, clips, fasteners or the like, and it is possible to, for example, glue the outer skin to the inner skin.
In accordance with still further features of the present invention, the skeleton includes at least one essentially horizontally extending strut means extending over an entire length of the door, and the inner skin, above and/or below the strut, recedes to form an arm rest, a door pouch, or the like, or respectively, is provided with openings for enabling a formation of mounting boards. In this manner, it is possible to optimally utilize the inner space of the door and to greatly reduce idle volume or wasted space. Moreover, the interior of the motor vehicle is enlarged or increased to a considerable extent based on the external dimensions of the vehicle.
Advantageously, mounting faces for engaging the outer skin are provided at beads of the inner skin surrounding the struts of the supportive skeleton, whereby the outer skin forming a protective shell, can be joined in a simple manner with the inner skin and, consequently, with the supportive skeleton.
In order to seal a door gap, the inner skin and/or the outer skin maybe provided with sealing lips integrally molded along a circumference of the vehicle door, and, consequently, it is unnecessary to provide separate sealing lips of foreign materials since the sealing action is performed or accomplished by the material of the inner skin fashioned to be correspondingly thin at the sealing lips.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description when taken into connection with the accompanying drawings which show, for the purposes of illustration only, several embodiments in accordance with the present invention.